A Table By the Window (24 page)

“I can do that,” Brooke said.

“Are you sure?”

“I can. You won't be sorry, Miss Reed.”

Carley recalled having said the same thing to Emmit White. She hoped both predictions would come true. Lifting the chair again, she said, “Okay, now if you'll excuse me, I need to finish here.”

But when she walked back in from the storage room, the girl was still standing, leaning her head thoughtfully.

“Is there something else?” Carley asked.

“Is it against the law for me to help you do that?”

“Yep.” Carley hooked her arm through the curved back of another chair. “You're still a minor, and I still don't have my tax ID number.”

“You wouldn't have to pay me. I got nothing better to do.”

“Thank you, anyway. We'd better play by the rules.”

The girl hesitated, then picked up a chair.

“Brooke, I said you can't help me.”

“Uh-huh. I heard you say that.” Brooke started carrying the chair toward the propped kitchen door.

Had the girl lost her mind? Suddenly uncertain if she should have agreed to hire her, Carley was about to order her to stop, when Brooke turned and gave her a little smile, “But if I won't listen, how are
you
gonna get in trouble?”

Remembering her protests to Gayle that this was not a date, Carley nonetheless rationalized that the desire to wear something other than grubby work clothes was reason enough for a dress. But a casual dress, a three-year-old lime green sleeveless knit with polo collar trimmed in white, and tan sandals.

Dale's directions were simple enough. A white frame house on Second Street on the west side of Main, three houses down from Green Thumb Nursery. The only house on Second Street with a squad car in the driveway, parked behind a Mustang coupe in a dark metallic blue. He answered the door wearing jeans, a knit shirt almost the color of her dress, and a navy apron featuring a cartoonish pig wearing wings and a halo, beneath
Heavenly Pig Barbecue House
.

“A gag birthday gift from my brother, Chad, a couple of years ago,” he said before she could ask. “It's an actual restaurant in Tallahassee. But why waste a good apron?”

“Do you give him gag gifts?” Carley asked on the way through a tidy living room with tan canvas sofa and recliner, big-screen TV, and pine bookcase.

“Of course.” He paused before an arched doorway. “Ah…I didn't have time to clean up.”

The kitchen was indeed a mess, with bowls in the sink, vegetables littering the counter around a cutting board, a light brown mixture congealing in a blender, open jars of mustard and soy mayonnaise, and cellophane bags of bread. But he had taken great pains with the presentation of his food, for the table boasted an impressive two trays of sandwiches, plates, and soup bowls for whatever simmered in two pots on the stove.

“I understand,” she said, even though she herself was obsessive about cleaning up as she went along. “Everything smells so good.”

“Really?” He rubbed palms together and pulled out a chair. “Well, I hope you came hungry.”

“I did.” But the fact that he had such variety frightened her. Had she not made the point that she could only devote a small portion of her menu, if any, to vegan foods? She said, “You cooked so many dishes.”

“I wanted to give you a good selection,” he said, settling in the chair beside her and placing half a sandwich on her plate. “Let's start with avocado-cucumber. Easy and delicious.”

He was correct about the delicious part, and she had no reason to doubt the easy. Simply cucumber and tomato slices, pepperoncini, mashed avocado, and alfalfa sprouts sprinkled with olive oil and vinegar, on whole wheat bread spread with tofu mayonnaise.

“Very good,” she said, nodding after her second bite.

The anxiety in his expression lessened. He took the sandwich from her. “Save some room for the rest, please.”

The rest included:

Spinach wrap with chopped vegetables and sunflower seeds

Olive spread on barley

Veggie burger on multigrain bun

Grilled eggplant sandwich

Roasted portobello mushroom, zucchini, red bell pepper, and chopped basil on white

Mediterranean hummus—the contents of the blender—with pita bread

Mushroom-wild-rice soup

Tomato-vegetable soup

“How did you learn to do all this?” she asked, raking up more hummus into her bread before he could take the plate away.

“Necessity—cookbooks and the Internet. I couldn't even fry an egg before I went vegan.” He tilted his head thoughtfully. “Which means I've never fried an egg, come to think of it.”

She did not care for the grilled eggplant sandwich, and so privately ruled it out. A perk of being one's own boss. Both the soups were delicious.

“You do understand that, as good as everything is, I can't promise how many will go on the menu?” she warned, even though she already knew that the hummus was a keeper.

“I understand,” he said. “And it's really good of you to at least consider them.”

She insisted upon helping clean the kitchen.

Clearly tempted, he said, “But I don't have a dishwasher….”

“Neither do I. But I have a system. I'll wash and rinse, you can dry and stack.”

“Only if you'll wear my apron,” he said, reaching back to untie the strings. “Since you have the messiest part.”

He helped her slip it over her head, then tied it for her. The simple courtesy unsettled her a bit, and she covered it by scooping up the almost-empty bottle of Dawn on the back of the sink. “Do you have any more of this?”

“Here, I'll get it,” he said, and she stepped aside so that he could open the cabinet. He handed her the dish soap, and as she tested the hot tap water she asked about the two framed photographs on the windowsill.

“My family last Christmas,” he said of the one on the right. “My parents, Alvin and Ginger, brother, Chad, and his wife, Peggy, and their three girls.”

“But where are you?” she asked.

“Taking the photograph.”

“And that's you and your brother?” she asked, nodding toward the one on the left. The two boys in different softball uniforms had identical heads of platinum hair.

He nodded. “I was nine, so Chad would have been twelve. I was in coach's pitch and he was in junior fastball.”

“What do your parents do?”

“Mom keeps house, and Dad's still a ranger at Florida Caverns State Park.”

She handed him a dripping plate. “With such a close family, what made you go to college in Hattiesburg?”

“Well, I followed Chad. I had done so all my life, and so I didn't even think hard about it, even though he was a senior when I entered as a freshman. He had an academic scholarship; I had a burger-flipping-ship. Chad moved back home after graduation, and I planned to do the same. But by the time I earned my bachelor's in Criminal Justice, I was dating a junior in Marketing.”

Carley wondered if he was referring to the Atlanta socialite fiancée.

“My first girlfriend,” he went on. “Diane. That was after I got in shape. By the time she dumped me for a premed student, I was working for the Hattiesburg Police Department.”

So, she was not the Atlanta fiancée after all. Carley said, “And you became a hero.”

“Well…I have to give some credit to vegetarianism. Back in my carnivore days I wouldn't have gone near a salad bar.”

Carley loved his modesty and self-effacing humor. “I hope Diane was good and sorry.”

“That thought did cross my mind once or twice,” he admitted with a little smile.

“Your family must be proud of you.”

“I hope so. They all came when I was sworn in as chief of police.”

“Do they visit often?”

He shook his head. “It's easier for me to go there, what with Chad's family and Mom's rheumatoid arthritis. And I do, about once a year. We aren't the Cleavers, but we're pretty close.”

“The Cleavers?” Carley asked while unscrewing the base to the blender.

“You know…
Leave it to Beaver
?”

“Is that a TV show?”

“It
was
,” he said. “Now it only comes on cable reruns. I can't believe you've never heard of the ‘Beave.'”

“I didn't watch a lot of television growing up.” Even the times they owned one, watching TV conflicted with her main goal of staying out of range of Linda and, sometimes, certain other people.

“Well, that's probably good,” Dale said. He gave her a sidelong grin. “So you were the studious sort, were you?”

“Not really. Just your typical girl.”

“Barbie dolls and tea sets?”

“Sometimes.”

Their fingers met again as he took the blender handle from her hands. He frowned. “No fair, Carley. You let me rattle on about my family, and now you clam up when I ask about yours. Were you secret agents or something?”

Just the idea made Carley smile. “You're right.”

“You
were
secret agents?”

This time she laughed. “No, about my being evasive. The truth is, I didn't have a very good childhood. And so it's not a pleasant subject of conversation.”

The towel stopped moving in his hand. “I'm sorry to hear that.”

She gave him a grateful look. “It's over now.”

They worked in silence for a little while, but not an awkward one. Presently he asked how the restaurant business was going.

“I hired my first employee today,” she said. “Sort of.”

When she told him the name, he shook his head. “I strongly advise you to reconsider. Forgive my crudeness, but the Kimballs are plain and simple white trash. Melvin Kimball's living on disability for a supposed back injury. And you'd never know this was a dry county from looking at the heap of bottles in his yard.”

“How can he buy liquor in a dry county?”

“He gets it from Hattiesburg.”

“What about his wife?”

“The way I hear it, she ran off with another man when the girl was very young. I don't know much about Brooke Kimball, except that she puts on a parade when she rides that bike through town. She's never been arrested, but you can tell just by looking at her that she's going to be trouble one day.”

That could have been said about me,
Carley thought. “I do appreciate your concern, Dale. But I'd really like to give her a chance.”

He shrugged. “Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. I've been in law enforcement long enough to know that it's true—the saying that fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.”

But the fruit doesn't have to lie where it falls,
she thought.

He wrapped half of the sandwiches in cellophane and spooned soup into plastic containers. When he presented her with a grocery bag, she said, “Don't you want to save these for your lunches?”

“There's enough for both of us. Besides, that's half the fun of cooking—sharing with a friend.”

He sounded sincere, not as if this was a subtle warning that she should not entertain any romantic notions about him. Carley met his eyes and smiled. She liked the idea of being Dale Parker's friend.

She would not be a woman if she did not wonder if friendship would lead to romance sometime in the future. But if so, the future was where it belonged. If he were to broach that subject so soon, her old cynicisms would creep into the mix. She was content to keep them at bay for now.

****

There was nothing Carley could do in the café while it was being painted, so she devoted Monday morning to house cleaning and exchanging e-mails with the graphic designer in Sacramento who made DeLouches' menus so unique. After lunch she drove to Turtle Creek Mall in Hattiesburg and bought a summer nightgown and robe set and a bottle of White Linen for Aunt Helen's seventy-fifth birthday party, to be held at Blake and Sherry's tomorrow evening.

Tuesday morning she stacked and refrigerated two long pans of lasagna before telephoning the Underwood house to ask about a deacon's bench.

“We'll be home all day,” said a woman who identified herself as Vera Underwood over the faint whining of an electric motor. She gave Carley directions, adding, “If no one answers the door, just come around back to the workshop. The dog won't bite.”

Three miles east of town on Highway 42, Carley spotted the white sign pointing toward Tallulah Pentecostal Church. Old Salt Road wound through pastures and piney woods. The Underwoods lived in a log home with a porch that stretched across the wide front. As Carley got out of the car, a young beagle sprinted from around the side with ears flopping. He barked until Carley said, “Nice doggie.” Then he wagged his tail and trotted beside her up the steps.

Vera Underwood answered her ring. She was an elegant woman, with high cheekbones, brown hair combed into a loose knot, and a light bronze complexion enhanced by an embroidered turquoise cotton shift.

“Good morning, Miss Reed.”

“Carley, please.”

“Lovely. I'm Vera. Won't you come in?” Her accent was the female counterpart of Stanley Malone's. Graceful, almost melodic. To the dog, she said, “Sorry, Mickey, not you.”

Honey-colored beams were stacked from sky-lit cathedral ceiling to slate floor. A stone fireplace reigned over one wall. The furniture was obviously handcrafted, with red Indian-blanket-print cushions.

“I just stepped inside to make lunch,” Vera said. “But I'll show you to the shop.”

“I didn't realize it was so late,” Carley said, even though she was certain the GL's clock had read only 10:30 when she turned off the ignition.

Vera smiled. “We're early birds, but just aren't ready for breakfast at six or so in the morning. So we have late-breakfast/early-lunch, whenever we decide we're hungry. I realize
brunch
is correct, but we backwoods country people just don't speak that way, or our friends would accuse us of putting on airs.”